Interplay Calls Bethesda's Fallout Claim "Absurd"

[Ausir]

Correction, Black Isle made two great Fallout Games. And many other great games. Interplay fucked them over by taking their funding and using it to make Fallout Brotherhood of Steel, which was a commercial and critical failure. Most of the Black Isle guys became Obsidian, which just made New Vegas.

Actually, Black Isle was always part of Interplay. It was an internal studio, and it wasn't even named "Black Isle" until Fallout 2. The original Fallout was simply developed by "Interplay". And two of the original devs are now at Interplay, working on Fallout Online.

 

[Austin Howe]

Here's my question, who the FUCK wants a Fallout MMO? Fallout works because it's a hugely isolating experience, with the best parts of the games frequently being the long walks between objectives with sparse combat, for better or worse.

 

[AzrealMaximillion]

Correction, Black Isle made two great Fallout Games. And many other great games. Interplay fucked them over by taking their funding and using it to make Fallout Brotherhood of Steel, which was a commercial and critical failure. Most of the Black Isle guys became Obsidian, which just made New Vegas.

Actually, Black Isle was always part of Interplay. It was an internal studio, and it wasn't even named "Black Isle" until Fallout 2. The original Fallout was simply developed by "Interplay". And two of the original devs are now at Interplay, working on Fallout Online.

Those two original Interplay devs are the ones that fucked over the Black Isle Employess hard. Interplay without Brian Fargo is a joke now. They've been in debt since Fallout BoS and haven't made a game since.

 

[ZephrC]

Seeing it from Bethesda's point of view, the agreement it signed with Interplay allegedly granted license to all Fallout material created by Interplay - FO1, 2, Tactics, BoS - but not anything created by Bethsoft. In other words, an Interplay-developed Fallout MMO would be based entirely on pre-Fallout 3 material, and give the success it's had with the franchise, Bethesda probably doesn't want that sort of schism to develop in the property. It may appear dickish on the surface but from a business point of view, it's not unreasonable.

They're still trying to enforce a clearly insane interpretation of the contract. There is really no way to justify that kind of behavior.

 

[Exort]

I guess if it goes sour for Interplay they can use the Fallout trademark to make "FalloutVille" just to be an arse to Bethesda. That and make millions off of the casual market.

I don't believe Casual market know what Fallout is so how would the name FalloutVille be superior to AnythingVille.

 

[Ausir]

Those two original Interplay devs are the ones that fucked over the Black Isle Employess hard.

Er, no, they didn't - you must be talking about the Caen brothers, who are company executives, not developers. The original Fallout developers I'm talking about (Chris Taylor and Mark O'Green) actually originally left the company back in the Fargo days and rejoined Interplay in 2008-2009, long after Black Isle was dissolved, to work on Fallout Online.

 

[Atmos Duality]

Is there one video game company out there that isn't run by complete assholes?

Absolute corporate competition. Being the bigger asshole and getting away with it means you win.
Bethesda wants to keep the image of its beloved new cash cow untarnished by Interplay, so now they're reinterpreting a licensing agreement in the dirtiest way possible.

Since it's an interpretation, then the courts will look toward intent, and it shouldn't be hard to spot the flaws in Bethesda's new argument.

 

[Jaime_Wolf]

All hyperbole aside, this might actually be the stupidest legal argument I've ever seen.

I can understandy why Bethesda would want to restrict Interplay like this, but actually acting as though this was their original intent and suggesting that the interpretation they've given is remotely reasonable?

I think this might beat out the Twinkie defence. Someone needs to come up with a witty name for what they're trying to do (preferably one referring to a Hostess snack).

 

[gamerguyal]

Bethesda needs to spend less time worrying about stupid technicalities and more time developing Elder Scrolls V. Who's with me?

 

[Warachia]

They should make the MMO Fallout about you with your own company, you have your own copyright to a specific item, you can combine this and make new copyrights by working with others and making short-long term contracts, both would choose what new idea they could get the rights to, and when you aretrying to use rights of others but they just won't let you, it could focus on the legal battles between both sides, and the not so legal backstabbing attempts. Shouldn't be too hard, some Mafia Wars, Office Management, and maybe a little phoenix wright between two people.

Seems like a good idea at this point and can be really reflective on how some companies treat others.

 

[Narcogen]

This is stupid beyond fucking belief (from Bethesda's side). Why don't they collaborate and make Fallout bigger than it ever was, subsequently bringing both companies bigger profits?

Not to mention this only increases my distaste towards the way people can legally twist words.

Sometimes that's a useful skill.

Bethesda aren't stupid. This is legal manuevering. The relationship between Bethesda and Interplay has obviously soured, and regardless of what agreements were previously made, Bethesda doesn't want Interplay using the property anymore, not even for the previously agreed-upon MMO project.

That means Bethesda's lawyers are going to go through those agreements with a fine tooth comb and look for anything-- absolutely anything-- to show that Interplay was or is in breach. If the agreement lacked specificity on what constitutes "Fallout" beyond the name, they'll pounce on that. Maybe it'll work. Maybe it won't.

 

[Narcogen]

They sold the IP but licensed back the rights to develop and publish the MMO. They actually offered to sell the MMO rights to Bethesda too, but Bethesda declined, because that would cost them extra. So now they're trying to get these rights for free by claiming that all Interplay had rights to use was just the title, which is ridiculous.

Or good business sense.

Without specifics I can only speculate, but since the franchise itself was sold, and the MMO rights re-licensed to Interplay, what seems to have occurred does not actually match up with your description. Presumably Interplay had to pay a licensing fee to make the MMO, and the price of this license either was either reduced from the sale price of the franchise, or offset in some other way that made it attractive to Bethesda for Interplay to continue development. The licensing fee may even be nonrefundable.

So for Bethesda, the prospects work out like this:

1) They buy Fallout and get the profits that result from the games they develop/publish using that property.
2) Interplay pays Bethesda a license fee to make their MMO. If it comes out, great. It's possible Interplay would have to pay a percentage to Bethesda, which is even better.
3) If the game doesn't come out, Bethesda keeps the license fee and the rights revert.
4) If the game comes out, but sucks, there are no profits to share and the property's reputation is damaged. Bethesda may still get to keep the license fee, but this may not be fair compensation for the loss of a share of profits of a successful MMO, or for the indirect losses caused by releasing a bad game.

It seems clear to me from Bethesda's actions that they think #4 is the most likely scenario and are taking every possible action to prevent the game from being completed or released.

Would Bethesda offer the licensing fee back? Probably not, unless there's an obligation in the contract for it, and since they want to show that Interplay doesn't actually have, nor actually can have, a Fallout MMO, they probably don't feel returning the fee is warranted.

Would Interplay accept the refund if offered? Again, probably not. It probably isn't large enough to cover their costs to date, and it doesn't help them do what they want to do, which is make the Fallout MMO, which, if it were to be released and successful, would gain them profits, potentially future development deals, or at least give the principals a good chance to move on to other employment or projects.

 

[Chalksoup]

I guess if it goes sour for Interplay they can use the Fallout trademark to make "FalloutVille" just to be an arse to Bethesda. That and make millions off of the casual market.

I don't believe Casual market know what Fallout is so how would the name FalloutVille be superior to AnythingVille.

You apparently don't realize the power of the microtransaction market. A while back I played a game on my wife's old iphone that was a medieval take on the "ville" idea because I was curious about the whole casual thing. I ended up on a brand new server and after 3 days there was one guy that topped the boards at about 60000 points higher than the next person who had about 4000. I ended up in a guild with the top guy and one day I asked him how he got so much higher than everyone else. He told me he bought 12 of the 99.99$ packages and had been spamming his build queues. Before I had left the game(the game was pretty boring, chating was nice though) there were 4 other people who started to buy and use the 99.99$ packages to try and get ahead of him and each other. I forgot to mention I only played for about a week.

Long story short though "FalloutVille" wouldn't need to be superior to anything out there really. All it would need to do is exist and have some add banners here and there so people could find it. Then it'd start printing its own money. Probly the reason there's so many Ville clones.

 

[Frozengale]

If Bethesda was trying to ruin their PR Cred then they are on the right track. If they are trying to make themselves look like jibbering ninnies that don't understand how licensing and trademarks work, they're already there.

 

[SL33TBL1ND]

So, why does Bethesda want to prevent Interplay from making an awesome Fallout MMO which would boost popularity and awareness of previous games again?

 

[TheAbominableDan]

I wonder how many people would be as supportive of Interplay as they are if they realized the guys in charge now are the guys responsible for Superman 64.

 

[Frozengale]

I wonder how many people would be as supportive of Interplay as they are if they realized the guys in charge now are the guys responsible for Superman 64.

And after you make a game like Superman 64 you can't make a WORSE game. So it's all good.

 

[Ausir]

Without specifics I can only speculate, but since the franchise itself was sold, and the MMO rights re-licensed to Interplay, what seems to have occurred does not actually match up with your description. Presumably Interplay had to pay a licensing fee to make the MMO, and the price of this license either was either reduced from the sale price of the franchise, or offset in some other way that made it attractive to Bethesda for Interplay to continue development. The licensing fee may even be nonrefundable.

For specifics, please read the Vault article linked from this very newspost.

 

[TheAbominableDan]

I wonder how many people would be as supportive of Interplay as they are if they realized the guys in charge now are the guys responsible for Superman 64.

And after you make a game like Superman 64 you can't make a WORSE game. So it's all good.

Did you forget their Robocop game?

 

[Kenny Kondom]

Now i like Bethsda games, but when they do shit like this it makes my life as a fan much harder to defend the franchise. Come on Bethsda! Stop letting the side down!!!